Paul Elam, head ranter at A Voice for Men, has a new video out called “You want privilege? You got it!” The thesis: if women really did have the so-called privileges that men have, they’d hate it and want men to take them all back. Because all of these so-called privileges are really giant burdens. Or, as Elam puts it, somewhat more melodramatically, these privileges have “begun to more resemble an anchor around your neck than the helm of a great ship that everyone tells you that you are captaining.”
Here’s the video.
Well, all right, that’s not really Paul Elam. But that little clip does capture pretty well the tone of his latest post, which is indeed about how male privilege is really a terrible burden.
I mean, this is his opener:
I swear by everything holy that the next time I hear some fembot caterwaul about “male privilege,” I am going to find something to break, turn it into shards, and drag the broken pieces across my chest just to distract me from the pain of their increasing stupidity. Just picture me like Martin Sheen, collapsed in a heap of bloody, tearful insanity on the floor of a cheap hotel in Saigon.
Heck, compared to that, Mr. McDuck’s reaction to the news about his “ice cream” was, if anything, rather restrained.
The rest of Elam’s post is, as is typical for him, a rather trite recitation of a number of standard Men’s Rights talking points about male “disposability” written in some of the most ridiculously overblown prose ever seen outside of an Ayn Rand novel.
Elam complains that he hasn’t seen much benefit from his privileges:
Mind you I still don’t know what that privilege is. One time when I was young and very poor I was late on my light bill. I showed the electric company my balls, but they cut my power off anyway. …
Yeah, as someone who’s also had his power cut off, I’m pretty sure they do that with everyone. I’m also pretty sure that no feminist has ever or will ever argue that male privilege means you won’t get your power cut off for nonpayment.
Here’s Elam addressing women as if they’ve traded place with men:
With your privilege comes the right to work on crab boats, drive trucks, work on electric lines, walk into burning buildings and sink into the bowels of the earth digging out coal and other things people find useful.
Apparently having greater occupational choices is scary and bad.
When a ship goes down, or any other life threatening disaster strikes, you have two choices. Be a real woman and die, or treat your life like it has value and have the world shit on you as a coward who refused to perish on cue. There is also the possibility of third option, either die from the disaster so that men can live, or have another woman blow a fucking hole in your face with a pistol because you tried to save yourself.
Yeah, I believe we may have addressed this earlier. Oh, but there’s more:
Like noticing the emperor has no clothes, it may hit you one day when you decide not to offer your seat to a man; when the stares at you from all around seem to come down people’s noses. …
You must learn not to say a word. Not to anyone else, not even to yourself. You must learn to see flames, coal dust, icy saltwater, death and sacrifice for the trappings of power that the world around you thinks them to be.
Says a dude typing out his manifestos on an expensive laptop he conned nagged his followers into buying for him.
And you must be willing to hang your head in shame over that power, even as the world chews you up, spits you out, and gets ready to take its turn with your daughter.
Elam’s rousing conclusion:
So, that is it, ladies. You want my privilege, it is yours. I will gladly hand it over to you this very minute. I am just waiting for you to meet the pre-requisites of disposibilty and an utter lack of self-value. I am waiting for you to woman up to the job, take off your fucking make up and be ready to bleed, blah blah blah look at me I’m mad!
I paraphrased a little at the end there. But, yes, the world champion at seeing male “disposability” everywhere did in fact misspell the word “disposability.” That was all him. And so, believe it or not, is the following:
I, like a Jew gone weary of being called a chosen one, am completely ready for anyone else, and in particular, you, to be chosen.
Personally, I have had about all the privilege I can stand.
Yep. He went there.
Also, I don’t know if you all knew this, but when women serve in the military these days it’s “like a day care camp for them.”
Also, not to pat myself on the back or anything, but my headline is much better than his. Maybe he should get me to write all the headlines on A Voice for Angry Duck Plutocrats Men.
Discuss.
Hmmmm, okay. Obviously the health care thing is too confusing for you! That’s okay! Reading can be hard. I’ll help you out. After all, it can’t be fun carrying all that rage around every day. Maybe I can reassure you.
All women pay for their birth control. It’s called insurance, which we pay for. The new rule simply placed “birth control” under “prevantive medicine” (which it clearly is: it prevents pregnancy, and it also–for 50% of women who take it–is used to prevent and treat endometriosis and ovarian cysts). 28 states already have this going; the new rule just made it national. The employer or the government does not pay for the BC…the health insurance company does, and women use their own money to pay their premiums. That’s kind of what health insurance is. Not free birth control. Covered birth control. There’s a difference. (Women who are unfortunate to be without an insurance company still have to pay for their birth control, just out of pocket and at a much higher price, of course. No free rides.) And insurance companies are actually really happy with this…the things BC prevents (remember, PREVANTIVE medicine, which is why it’s covered, NOT because it’s a Lady Thing and we ladies run the world) are much more expensive…prenatal care, delivery, neonatal care, and all the myriad expensive things that could go wrong at all those stages, not to mention care for endometriosis, ruptured cysts, emergency hsterectomies…yeah, birth control makes a lot of financial sense for everyone, insurance companies, governement (who often picks up the costs of health care that you can’t afford), and, yes, women (and the men who care about them–they exist, too).
Um, the rest of that (no prevantive care for men) is just dead wrong. Sorry.
As for no “well man” care…you are aware that men don’t need to have the same types of invasive check-up that women do because their bodies work differently? Yes, at some point in a man’s life, he’ll need to bend over and cough. But women’s bodies are different, and so they require different care. But, you’re right, it’s not fair. I’ve seen the light. I will happily surrender my amazing Lady Privilage to sit in stirrups and someone wrench open my insides and stick swabs up my cervix. You can have the vaginal ultrasounds, too, where they push a ten-inch wand up your vagina and wiggle it around tyring to find things that aren’t working, right. Of course, that all wouldn’t make much sense unless I surrendered to you also the amazing thrill of monthly feeling of my insides twisting up, the vommiting, the headaches, and the joy of blood that gushes out faster than tampons can keep up for 10 days or so. Oh, and you’ll want be able to experience the joy of carrying a child around in your body for 9 months, it’s widdle baby feet smashing against your bladder, it’s wee head pounding against your pubic bone for ours, and the wild ecstacy of pushing a nine lb body out a tiny hole that is never, ever big enough. Wow, I have seen the light! I cannot believe how oppressed men are to never get to experience that! We must be stopped!
(In all seriousness, I’m a celibate lesbian. I say this because I am also on birth control. That my insurance company covers, with the money I pay into my premium. And they were happy to cover it, because without the BC, I would practically be living at the hospital because of the intense pain, bleedings, and infections caused by cysts that cover my right ovary. I’m not asking the governement to pay for me to have sex–not my thing, and if it was, I wouldn’t need birth control–and of course, the government wouldn’t pay anyone for sex, which you probably could have figured out on your own if you thought about it real hard for a second or two.)
The right to work on crab boats, eh? Yes, because feminists everywhere are super into paternalism and don’t find anything problematic at all about laws or social norms that bar women from certain professions. Having two brothers who greatly admired our grandfather, decided to become military officers like him, and have now been psychologically wounded by tours in Iraq, I know I certainly don’t have any guilt around the fact that I know the only reason I didn’t do the same is because, as the girl in the family, I was socialized totally differently and not at all encouraged to apply to college at a military academy. Nope, nosiree.
Also, I wrote a blog post about paternalism in Russia last summer, if anyone is interested. It is linked if you click on my name.
Sometimes it is amazing to me just how many MRA problems, made so much worse by straw-feminism, would be fixed by… actual feminism. *headdesk*
I fail to see how birth control pills being covered by insurance is a problem somehow. Especially coming from dudes who want to have PIV sex without having children. Do I really need to explain how it benefits you?
If those professions are too dangerous don’t choose do them. If going to war is not what you want to do don’t join the army. Conscription in the US hasn’t happened for quite a few decades. If you don’t want to deal with the potential chaos of a boating disaster, stay off of boats. If you don’t want your electricity cut off pay the bill. Don’t have money? Sell some shit.
It’s not that complicated.
Sounds like there couldn’t be enough privileges in the world to satisfy this royal prince.
Oh, wait, I need minions first. Darn. Anyone up for that? I can rant a bit, and feel hard done by, if that helps.
In what world is this true? I always have to pay a copay for my birth control and visits to the gynecologist, and cancer screening such as coloscopies are EXPENSIVE.
@ Hershele- in the famous words of Tevye the Milkman “I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can’t You choose someone else?”
I know Antz’ style now is bleat and run, but still…
Oh, REALLY?
From Planned Parenthood:
Source.
And look what the feminist man-hating overlords of Obama’s CDC are urging.
Free prostate health screening.
Wow, look at all of these smoking cessation programs available
only to womenfor everyone.It took me about 5 minutes on my break to find this very non-exhaustive list of resources for Antz, who won’t come back or if he does won’t bother to read anything.
Ugh. As much as I think as Elam is full of shit, you’re oversimplifying the matter. I’m with you on the “if don’t want to enroll in the USA army, no one will make you do it”. But the rest? That’s not how it works.
There’s barely no place in world were you can be 100% sure you’ll have no natural disaster, man or not. And people can’t always afford, for a multitude of reasons, starting with money and family, to chose a risk-free place to live. Same thing for dangerous jobs: when you need the money, the choice isn’t always very big. And even for people who do choose the dangerous jobs, they still have a fucking hell of a right to complain if their work place’s safety is neglected. And least and most obvious: paying bill isn’t easy. “Just sell some shit to pay them” is an insulting and idiotic answer to a serious issue people face.
Like Paul Elam has ever done day’s hard labor. If men don’t want to work in coal mines or serve in the Army then DO SOMETHING ELSE. We don’t even have a draft anymore, and our ARMED Forces are better for it. Yet these MRAs harp on about women never being drafted. You will never be drafted either, idiot!!
Okay, yeah, this thread is getting kinda classist with all the “don’t want a dangerous job? do another job!” stuff. Nobody’s going into coal mining for the glamor, and a lot of people (especially lately) don’t have their pick of jobs.
No, this isn’t about “disposable men” (it’s more about “strong and mechanically competent men), but it isn’t about guys going “tra la la I think I’ll be a coal miner today” either.
As a person who has worked in healthcare nearly their entire working career, fuck you, Zarat. You are a liar and a disingenuous scumbag. Tubal ligation, cancer and std screening, and everything else you screech about women exclusively receiving, IS NOT FREE you ridiculous jackass. Also, smoking cessation programs are open to one and all.
Prostate screenings are considered routine and important and physicians stress regular prostate screenings to their male patients.
Planned Parenthood, which, btw, is now under attack by all those “feminist conspirator overlords,” offers services to men.
And how fucking dare you accuse people in my field of not caring about men. You just insulted every healthcare worker throughout the world.
Quite frankly, I don’t know how anyone here tolerates such an insipid liar such as yourself. They may be amused by you, but not me. You’re a bottom feeder who would see actual harm reduction measures destroyed, if you could, because you harbor a toxic hatred of women.
ANTZ: Nobody noticed “it” because “it” isn’t fucking there.
U r RONG!
Either Antsy forgets there are male feminists, or his words only apply to female feminists.
Either way he’s still a misogynist douchebag.
@ Cliff
I totally see your point about this seeming classist. Being around the military, I’ve met people from all over the country, and there are some small towns where there is literally NOTHING to do but be a coal miner. Your father is one, your brother, and the only way for you NOT to be one is to leave. I know a soldier who joined the army for that very reason. In another part of the country, where I used to teach, there was a lot of gang involvement, and if your brothers and father were flying colors, you damn were too. There are a lot of people who do not have the opportunity to finish high school, let alone college, because of environmental and family circumstances. There are some young people today being raised with the expectation that they will go to jail at some point. But my husband always says, if you can graduate high school without a criminal record, you can join the Army, and a LOT of young people have overcome horrible circumstances by taking that route.
I recognize that we are all not “Mitt Romneys.” I was never that lucky, but I would say that I am luckier than most. The great thing about this country is that people, men and women, have greater freedom to pursue any vocation or career. Now, it’s not a guarantee, there are winners and losers in life, but at least we all can try. No one is an indentured servant.
Elam is perpetuating this myth that men are born into slavery, forced to do manual labor to support women. I think this is the first time in history that men AREN’T expected to support a woman. She can support herself.
Antz,
I might be that nobody has noticed these things because they don’t, you know, actually exist. Just a thought.
Antz: Back when my hip was more functional, I did door-to-door canvassing. walking six or seven hours in the summer. At five or six thousand feet of elevation – I learned REAL quick to carry sunscreen! I’ve also cleaned tissue culture test tubes (okay, not physically hard, but disgusting like you would not believe), worked in various kinds of factories, including injection mold plastics (horrible smell, often working two or more molds at once) and a paint line that sometimes required contortion, brute strength or cunning to get the parts off and still make time.
Women do physically demanding jobs ALL THE TIME – armed forces, forestry, construction, even your precious fucking coal mining. You want to know why more women don’t do such jobs? Because many of them are fucking boy’s clubs, full of men who are determined not to allow their glorious profession to be sullied by a girl.
I suppose one could link to the photographic evidence of women working in coal mines and sailing ships or even the story of the woman who had her power turned off for being one cent short on her light bill. Since MRA arguments are faith based, they are impervious to facts or reality, it would be pointless.
Neither the library nor google can be your friend if you refuse to befriend them.
Also I’m sure he will be wreaking havoc on all feminist sites any second now, or when he learns how to use his shiny new havoc wreaking laptop.
Any
second
now.
Like Paul Elam has ever done day’s hard labor. If men don’t want to work in coal mines or serve in the Army then DO SOMETHING ELSE. We don’t even have a draft anymore, and our ARMED Forces are better for it. Yet these MRAs harp on about women never being drafted. You will never be drafted either, idiot!!
Ah, but don’t you see? MRAs share the suffering of every single man in history, just as they share in the achievements of every single man. After all, they hunted the mammoth while prehistoric women sat at home and ate cave bons bons before running off with alpha neanderthals.
Also, women have never been oppressed ever in history, and certainly not now; any woman who is in need can always sit down in the middle of the street and cry until a man gives her whatever her heart desires.
It’s a strange world MRAs inhabit, one that I personally have never visited.
captainbathrobe: If the crying in the middle of the street thing worked, I would not be waiting for my painkiller script to be filled right now.
@Kathleen:
Maybe you just haven’t cried loud enough?
Of course, if you were a man, you would be expected to get by without painkillers at all. And I base this statement on absolutely nothing, yet I deeply believe it to be true, therefore you are all bigots. QED. 🙂
@ captainbathrobe
That is another thing I hate. They take credit for all of the technological achievements, but conversely won’t take the blame for any of the atrocities or crimes men have committed over the ages (they blame women for “making them do it” btw). I doubt Paul Elam knows how to fix his transmission, frame a house, or build a hydro electric dam, making him just as useless as a…woman. (Sarcasm)
Able-bodied men giving up their seats to able-bodied women is uncommon enough to be irrelevant, and I’ve never seen anyone actually give a shit that it didn’t happen.
Yeah, doesn’t happen. I have, however, seen an elderly woman give up her seat for a pregnant woman. And then an able-bodied man give up his seat for the elderly woman. That was pure class all around.
captainbathrobe: Well, I can barely stand right now (incoming thunderstorm playing merry hob with my fuckleg), but I would think that the noises I make as I try to get out of the chair would be loud enough. Or does that not count as crying?
I’ll provide links and pics right now…which MRAs will take into consideration I’m SURE. /sarcasm.
http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02903-X.html
http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/coalMine.html
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1842womenminers.asp
http://cwcs.ysu.edu/about/current-projects/journalism/articles/female-coalminer
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20078056,00.html
Fuck all these MRAs for constantly erasing women who do these jobs. Maybe they aren’t a majority but they exist. I’m so sick of them pretending like they believe women are just as capable and that men will welcome them with open arms in these jobs and not at all give them a hard time. It’s like how they complain women don’t do these jobs yet screech about the quotas in firefighting and about how weak and incapable women are and will get everyone killed. YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS ASSHOLES!
and I’m sorry but some of this IS a choice for men. Lower class men can choose a safer job like retail or food service like lower class women do but they don’t want to because the pay is shit. So how come the wage gap is always about women’s choices but the death gap is male oppression and discrimination? what BS. They pull the choice card only when it suits their agenda.